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overwintering Winter-Summer in OZ "Comparison" / Aussie Blabberers

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I noticed this morning my Trinidad Scorpions are turning yellow..?
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Tell us about your lighting (type & how close) water regime, type of potting mix, are you using fertz?

Mezo.
 
Its a propagation light. It's about a foot away from the plants. They are in osmicote pro seed raising mix. I hadn't watered for 3 days because the soil was still wet from when I transplanted (I gave em a fair ol soaking). Last night I gave them a weak dose of MG, I'm talking only half the recommended mix. Each plant had about 15mls of the fert.
 
Its a propagation light. It's about a foot away from the plants. They are in osmicote pro seed raising mix. I hadn't watered for 3 days because the soil was still wet from when I transplanted (I gave em a fair ol soaking). Last night I gave them a weak dose of MG, I'm talking only half the recommended mix. Each plant had about 15mls of the fert.
I've never seen veinal chlorosis before.
I could just be too wet.
That osmicote pro seed raising mix doesn't look too good to me. Has coir, wetting agents and wetting crystals!
That new leaf growing looks very yellow as well.
I wouldn't do anything, especially no watering it for a week or two. If it wilts just give it some time away from the lights and a spray on the leaves to moisten them because I don't know any problem or lack of ferts that cause only veinal chlorosis (normally the whole leaf turns yellow or the veins stay green and the rest turns yellow). This is something different to anything I've seen
 
If the mix has all that super wetting agent stuff it might even be a good idea to transplant it to some new soil. If you're forced to only water it every few days the roots will be deprived of oxygen and the growth will slow right down. Chillies hate having wet roots, they really love good drainage. I have found this out the painfully hard season ending way.
 
Unlike the US, we have nothing decent over here. Nothing comes premixed with perlite or vermiculite, and hardly anything has peat in it.
Some of us have used debco, but read a few pages back and gasi had trouble finding it in QLD Bunnings and was told bunnings aren't stocking it anymore? That might be a nationwide decision or it might just be QLD.

In Perth last year I got debco SRM from Inglewood Bunnings, apparently it's at morley as well, you have to email debco@debco.com.au to find out which other bunnings stores have it, as all the other ones near me didn't every the bigger shops.
Also after potting up, I used debco organic mix, I didn't see that at any other local bunnings either, but went back to inglewood for it. While your there, grab a 20L bag of perlite as most bunnings had that at least, so expensive to ship over to wa from ebay etc I think, even though it's much cheaper online.
I did also try amgrow, debco pot mate and baileys, but was not impressed, so in future it's debco organic potting mix and a bag or two of perlite for me.

I raise my seeds up in coir, but never over water, just a weekly surface and leaf spray and keep it dry other wise - chillies love love love dry soil as megamoo said. But if you want a seed raising mix either get debco seed raising mix or try coles potting mix from the coles supermarket, very empty of any additives, and very chippy/barky so ideal, but can vary in quality and have bugs in it unfortunately - so coles mix is a crap shoot, but if it's good bag , it's ideal.
 
What does the wetting agent do to the plant then? i think i have that stuff in my potting mix (gulp).

Mezo.
 
Hi guys,

Does anyone here use the paper towel in ziplock bag method to sprout their seeds? Last year I used a mix of Jiffys (teabags and pots) and seed raising mix but had quite a few failures with the jiffys as it seemed like some would dry out really quickly and others would stay too moist sometimes. This year I was purely going to use seed raising mix with 3 seeds per 100mm pot but soon realised with 25 varieties I'm not going to be able to fit them all on or over my heat mat and don't really have anything else warm enough to encourage sprouting.

So I'm thinking about trying the paper towel & ziplock bag method because I can keep 25 bags warm much easier than 25 pots... Once sprouted and placed into seed raising mix do they still need the 25C+ temps or can they drop down to about 22C of my house temp?

Or does someone have a better idea? I'm open to trying anything to get a high germination rate :D

Thanks in advance :cheers:
 
What does the wetting agent do to the plant then? i think i have that stuff in my potting mix (gulp).

Mezo.
Wetting agent isn't bad by itself. It's a neccesity in Perths dirt as the ground is often hydrophobic. IE if you try water a garden or lawn here, you'll just have puddles sitting on the surface sometimes.
So I use a wetting agent on my vege patch or lawn a couple of times a year to get the water to soak into the soil. I've also used it on potting mix that I let dry out too much. Without it you can't get any water to penetrate the surface/mass of the soil.

It's just a bad idea for a seed raising mix that already has coir and wetting crystals, especially for chillies as it means it will just soak up and absorb and hold moisture for a long long time. Without the wetting agent maybe at least there would be some drier pockets of soil?
But I use wetting agents on the ground and in dry dry dry plants/soil all the time. I just wouldn't have it (or wetting crystals) for chilli seedlings. I do germinate in coir though, without either of them, and that alone is sometimes a struggle to keep them from getting too wet. It's a skill I need to work more on, but it's hard enough as it is without the wetting agent and crystals.

Hi guys,

Does anyone here use the paper towel in ziplock bag method to sprout their seeds? Last year I used a mix of Jiffys (teabags and pots) and seed raising mix but had quite a few failures with the jiffys as it seemed like some would dry out really quickly and others would stay too moist sometimes. This year I was purely going to use seed raising mix with 3 seeds per 100mm pot but soon realised with 25 varieties I'm not going to be able to fit them all on or over my heat mat and don't really have anything else warm enough to encourage sprouting.

So I'm thinking about trying the paper towel & ziplock bag method because I can keep 25 bags warm much easier than 25 pots... Once sprouted and placed into seed raising mix do they still need the 25C+ temps or can they drop down to about 22C of my house temp?

Or does someone have a better idea? I'm open to trying anything to get a high germination rate :D

Thanks in advance :cheers:
I tried it last year with some success. It wasn;t the best method I tried, but it did work. To be honest though the seeds I was using was fail seeds. IE I started all out in potting mix, some varieties didn't work even the second try. So I gave those non working seeds another try in jiffies, some seeds worked for the first time. And whatever didn't work in jiffies I tried in desperation the paper towel method, some worked.
So all the easy to germinate seeds I never tried with paper towels as they worked fine in potting mix, and some worked fine in jiffies.

If the seed is good, it's really easy to germinate. If it's hard to germinate, it's not the method IMHO, it's the seed being not very good. So blame the seed I think.
But as I did get a couple of bad seed stock germinating on paper towels it's worth a shot if you want to do it purely for space saving reasons. But if you are using the same seed as last year, you may not get any better results, and you may see a fair few go moldy. And that's not because anything you've done wrong, it's because the seed is bad from the beginning.

Once they have germinated you don't need to keep the heat up. mine go to colder areas of the house near the windows once germinated (light is more important that heat)
 
Sorry Pablo but I can't agree that wetting agent is ever a necessity if you put enough organic amendments into your soil and aerate it properly, no matter what your soil is like. Organic amendments in the long term will be a much better choice then wetting agents/crystals in my opinion
 
I've only lived in rentals, so stuff that 'long term' idea and spending heaps of money on other people's soil :-)
edit: And it's a bit to late to do anything about a lawn organically regardless if already established. It's grass on hydrophobic dirt. Choice is to dig it up and redo if already established, (not that I like lawn anyway if given the choice), or use some wetting agent a couple of times a year...
 
Thanks for the reply, Pablo. I'm giving 3 varieties a test run in paper towel & bag to see how it goes and then in a few days I'll decide what to do :)
 
No problem.

read this thread : http://thehotpepper.com/topic/19898-germinating-experiment-cups-vs-bags/

If using paper, I would definitely presoak the seed in diluted h2o2 solution first. and I'd inflate the bag a bit so it acts as a container, not flat and the seed soaked without any air.
Also just like any germination method (and chilli plants in general), the seeds just need to be moist, not sopping wet.

The only problem I have had with paper towel method is mold easily forming, hence using a h2o2 presoak, and maybe even using that in extra weaken form to moisten the paper.
 
Hey guys. Unfortunately dont have the space to grow this year but would love to buy some hot peppers. Anyone know a good place in Melbourne to pick up a bunch of different types to cook with?
 
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My 2yr old son has been watching me transplant over the last couple of days. He had a go at it by himself when I was away last night! Poor Moruga's...I wonder if they will survive.
 
19ad9b4b.jpg
My 2yr old son has been watching me transplant over the last couple if days. He had a go at it by himself when I was away last night! Poor Moruga's...I wonder if they will survive.

Do your cups have any drainage holes at the bottom? From the photo it seems there's water pooling at the bottom of the cups.
 
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